Thomas Nevin’s Christmas cards 1874

On Christmas Day, 25th December 1874, The Mercury newspaper (Tasmania) published a notice which served the dual purpose of praising Nevin’s photographic talents and suggesting by way of praise that the “literary curiosity” would make a great gift as a Christmas card:

T. J. Nevin’s photographic feat, The Mercury 25 December 1874

TRANSCRIPT

A PHOTOGRAPHIC FEAT. – Mr T. J. Nevin, of Elizabeth-street, has performed a feat in photography which may be justly regarded as a literary curiosity. He has succeeded in legibly producing the front page of The Mercury of Wednesday, the 23 inst., on a card three inches by two inches. Many of the advertisements could be read without the aid of a glass, and the seven columns admit of a margin all round the card.

Below is a microfiche scan of the front page of The Mercury, Wednesday 23rd December 1874. It is a poor reproduction despite our 21st century technology, yet Thomas Nevin managed to photograph the full broadsheet onto a 3 x 2 inch card without sacrificing margins or legibility.

Scan of front page The Mercury 23rd December 1874Click on image for large view

Thomas Nevin would have delivered to the newspaper office a commercial version of the card which must have been printed verso with his official studio stamp in 1874, the only one of his stamps bearing his full initials – ” T. J. Nevin” above the government insignia, since the journalist has used his full initials in the report. He was better known as Thos Nevin. The same studio stamp was printed on the verso of this carte-de-visite vignette of a child (Lucy Batchelor Collection). Nevin or his studio assistants, probably in this instance his wife Elizabeth, hand-painted the green and red motif of Christmas holly, possibly over some object held by the child. The same sprig of holly motif appears on other extant cartes by Nevin, positioned in the hands of a teenage girl in one carte bearing the hand-written inscription verso “Clifford & Nevin, Hobart Town“, (Harrisson Collection), and in another, on the lapel of a young sailor (TMAG; SLTas). The carte of this (unknown) toddler would have been included in Nevin’s stock of Christmas cards for 1874, on sale at 140 Elizabeth Street along with the miniature reproduction of The Mercury‘s front page.

Thomas J. Nevin (1842-1923)

Professional photographer Thomas James Nevin snr (1842-1923) produced large numbers of stereographs and cartes-de-visite within his commercial practice, and prisoner identification photographs on government contract. His career spanned nearly three decades, from the early 1860s to the late 1880s. He was one of the first photographers to work with the police in Australia, along with Charles Nettleton (Victoria) and Frazer Crawford (South Australia). His Tasmanian prisoner mugshots are among the earliest to survive in public collections, viz. the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, Launceston; the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Hobart; the Tasmanian Heritage and Archives Office, Hobart; the Port Arthur Historic Site, Tasman Peninsula; the National Library of Australia, Canberra; and the Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW, Sydney. Thomas J. Nevin's stereographs and portraits are held in public and private collections in Australia, New Zealand, the USA, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Denmark, and Switzerland.

John Nevin snr (1808-1887)

Soldier, journalist, teacher and poet John Nevin snr (1808-1887). in the Royal Scots 1825-1841

Disclaimer

We have not voluntarily contributed to any publication which supports the misattribution of Nevin's prisoner/convict photographs (300+ extant) to the non-photographer A.H. Boyd, nor do we condone any attempts by public institutions or private individuals to co-opt the work on these Nevin weblogs and associated sites to apply the misattribution.

Old Chinese saying: "When you drink the water, remember who dug the well".

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